ARTIST PUBLICATION | EXILE IS A HARD JOB: WALLS

Exile is a Hard Job: Walls, a book focusing on Nil Yalter’s eponymous ongoing public space intervention concerning immigration will be released in Venice in April 2024, coinciding with the opening of Yalter’s presentation at the main pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennial, where she will also receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement together with Anna Maria Maiolino.

Nil Yalter first realized Exile is a Hard Job: Walls in Spain in 2012 for her solo exhibition in Valencia. She recreated, as large-scale posters, the black and white photographs and drawings of a blue-colour worker family that she met in 1976 while creating the series “Immigrants”. Yalter put them up on the walls of Valencia and wrote with red paint in Spanish, “Exile is a Hard Job”; the last lines from Nazım Hikmet’s poem “from Sofia” (1957). This guerrilla gesture that takes Yalter’s artistic practice out of the bounds of art institutions, also gives visibility to daily struggles of immigrants that are often overlooked.

 

The book Exile is a Hard Job: Walls brings together a comprehensive archive on the guerilla postering project which spread to 19 cities over 12 years by forging the collaboration of art institutions around the world. It includes photographs documenting the hanging, distribution, exhibition, wear and tear, transformation and disintegration processes of the posters, an introductory text by Nil Yalter and an essay on the project by academic and curator Övül Durmuşoğlu.

Sponsored by Marta Herford Museum, Saha Association, The Sharjah Art Foundation, Kemal Servi, Arter, Galerist, Museum Ludwig, Istanbul Modern and with support from 49 Nord 6 Est FRAC Lorainne, Green on Red Gallery, Sammlung Vebund, Spot Projects, TaxisPalais Kunsthalle Tirol, Transfo: Emmaüs Solidarité, Ayşe Umur, Collection Hainz, Zafer Yıldırım, Zeynep Yenel and Kerem Onursal, the book has been realized as a collective project like the work itself.

Designed by Ayşe Bozkurt, coordinated by Ekin Kohen, edited by Eda Berkmen, and printed by Mas Matbaa, Exile is a Hard Job: Walls will be distributed internationally by Walther Koenig.

April 21, 2024